He, She, and the Inevitable Us
The young Belgian-Moroccan Soumia gave two old friends a lift to the bus station. There the two carried out an attack. Without realising it, Soumia was an accomplice and given a prison sentence. She is now desperately trying to escape this past.
Tough old Fleming Luc lost his wife Maria in the attack. Wallowing in bitterness and pain, he is unable to let go of the past and rails at ‘those bloody foreigners’ to anyone prepared to listen.
Ait Hamou immediately pulls his readers in, and never lets go.Mappalibri
Soumia and Luc live in the same neighbourhood. When they meet by accident, they discover that their lives are more closely intertwined than they care to admit and they face some heart-rending decisions. He wants to know everything there is to know, aware that the truth will never be able to fill the bottomless void in his heart.
Can Luc forgive Soumia? Can Soumia understand that Luc blames her for the death of his wife, even though she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? But was she really?
In this novel Ish Ait Hamou goes in search of what binds us, our longing for forgiveness and acceptance and our ability to understand each other in an increasingly polarised society.
Challenging and haunting. Ait Hamou is emerging as an important voice of his generation.De Standaard
After reading this novel you want to make the world a bit smaller so you can reach out to others.Trouw
